1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a steam sterilizer or autoclave for sterilizing waste.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
In general, special incinerators are used for disinfecting and sterilizing infectious waste or for destroying organisms. These incinerators suffer from generally known disadvantages, e.g. the environment suffers through emissions in the form of toxic substances in waste gases and possibly unpleasant odors from burning waste and from the support fire. The latter can only be obtained with a considerable energy expenditure and, in the case of the generally used discontinuous installations, the burning of hospital waste which cannot be dispatched for garbage disposal can only occur when the installation has been already adequately heated and therefore thermal energy has been supplied thereto. In addition, in such cases the waste must be intermediately stored.
Autoclaves have already been proposed, but they have not been used, because conventionally a stirrer is provided in the autoclave for size reduction purposes. Consequently, there is a risk that parts of the waste will pass from the interior of the autoclave via the charging or loading opening to the outside, so that there is an increased risk of infection.
The object of the invention is therefore to provide an autoclave making it possible to destroy waste, particularly infectious waste, such as hospital waste. It is a further object to enable this sterilization to take place in an economic manner and with completely satisfactory hygienic loading.